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Abstract
This article critically examines Ethiopia’s engagement with China and India. Despite being a non-oil exporting country, Ethiopia has become one of the fastest growing economies in Africa and, over the past decade, millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Part of Ethiopia’s success has been the ability of the developmental state to harness its relationship with the new as well as the traditional development partners strategically, to unleash the country’s productive potential while maintaining national policy space. Ethiopia’s pragmatic ‘economic diplomacy’ arose from the desire of the liberation movements that formed the umbrella Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to fundamentally transform all aspects of Ethiopian society and to break out of poverty, which the EPRDF considers a ‘national shame’ and a handicap to the country’s ability to define foreign and development policies independently. The Ethiopian experience challenges the school of thought that equates the rise of emerging powers in Africa with a new form of ‘colonialism’, disregarding African agency to transform these relationship into ‘win-win’ partnerships.
Notes
1. Brautigam, The Dragon's Gift; Alden, China in Africa; Cheru and Obi, The Rise of China and Africa; and “Africa Rising.”
2. Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors; and Cheru and Obi, The Rise of China and India in Africa.
3. Hackenesch, European Good Governance Policies; and Manning, “Will Emerging Donors change the Face of International Cooperation?”
4. Woods, “Whose Aid? Whose Influence?”; and Chaturvedi et al., Development Cooperation and Emerging Powers.
5. Axelsson and Sylvanus, “Navigating Chinese Textile Networks”; and Draper et al., “Chinese Investments in African Network Industries.”
6. Geda and Meskel, “China and India’s Growth Surge.”
7. Human Rights Watch, You will be Fired if you Refuse.
8. Alden, “China in Africa”; and Mutesa, “China and Zambia.”
9. Mohan et al., Chinese Migrants and Africa’s Development, 163.
10. Naim, “Rogue Aid”; and Zakaria, The Post-American World.
11. Pillsburry, The Hundred Year Marathon; Jacques, When China Rules the World; and Zakaria, The Post-American World.
12. Mawdsley, “Fu Manchu versus Dr. Livingstone”; and Brautigam, “Aid with Chinese Characteristics.”
13. Chaturvedi et al., Development Cooperation and Emerging Powers; Mawdsley, From Recipients to Donors; and Kragelund, “'The Return of the non-DAC Donors.”
14. Herbert, “Sixty Years of Development Aid.”
15. Moyo, Dead Aid.
16. Sautmann and Hairong, “Fu Manchu in Africa?”
17. Moyo, Winner take All; and Southall and Melber, A New Scramble for Africa?
18. Volman, China, India, Russia and the United States.
19. Mohan and Power, “New African Choices?”; UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa; and Cheru and Modi, Agriculture and Food Security in Africa; and Carmody, The Rise of the BRICS.
20. Mohan and Lampert, “Negotiating China.”
21. Zenawi, “States and Markets”; and Cheru and Calais, “Countering ‘New Imperialisms’.”
22. Kaplinsky and Morris, “The Asian Drivers and SSA”; Geda and Meskel, Impact of China–Africa Investment Relations.
23. Zenawi, “Africa’s Development.”
24. De Waal, “The Theory and Practice of Melees Zenawi.”
25. Ministry of Information, Foreign Affairs.
26. MOFED, Growth and Transformation Plan.
27. Zenawi, “Africa’s Development.”
28. Hackenesch, European Good Governance Policies meet China in Africa; and interview with official from the China–Ethiopia Coordination office of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, September 17, 2015.
29. Interview with officials at the China Coordination Desk of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Addis Ababa, August 17, 2015.
30. European Commission, Directorate for Trade , July 11, 2013.
31. Data collected from the Ethiopian Investment Agency, March 2015.
32. Interviews with the Prime Minister’s Special Advisor on Industrialization, March and August 2015.
33. MOFED, Public Sector Debt Statistical Bulletin No. 11.
34. Interview with two senior officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, June 2015.
35. Interview with the Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, August 21, 2015.
36. Data from the Ethiopian Roads Authority.
37. Interview with Dr. Arkebe Oqubay, Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister in charge of industrial policy.
38. “Ethiopia to build Africa’s First Railway Academy”; and personal interview with Special Advisor to the Prime Minister and Minister responsible for industrialisation policy.
39. Interview with official of the Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, April 22, 2015.
40. Interview with the Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, May 12, 2015.
41. Personal communication with Dr. Arkebe Oqubay, Minister and Special Advisor to the Prime Minister, May 12, 2015.
42. MOFED, Public Sector Debt Statistical Bulletin No. 11; and Moody’s Investor Service, “Moody’s Assigns B1 Issue Rating.”
43. Interview with the Director General for Asia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, April 21, 2015.
44. Sinha, “Indian Development Cooperation with Africa.”
45. Interview with the Director General for Asia, Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, August 11, 2015.
46. “Ethiopia – New Sugar Factory.”
47. Abate, “Delhi Firm wins $100 million Ethiopian Sugar Factory Contract.”
48. Rahmato, “Up for Grabs”; and Rowden, “Indian Agricultural Companies.”
49. Brautigam, “Ethiopia’s Partnership with China.”
50. Fourie, “China’s Example of Meles’ Ethiopia.”
